Site Mobile Navigation

Ethnic violence spreads in Kenya, with no sign of respite

NAIROBI — Ethnic violence continued to spread throughout Kenya on Sunday, with at least 7 people burned to death in their homes in a tourist town and more than 100 people killed in the past four days. It was the worst fighting since the first days of turmoil after a disputed election in December. And the unrest shows no signs of abating.

The Kenyan government is now threatening to arrest top opposition leaders on suspicion of fomenting the violence, and opposition leaders are in turn accusing the government of backing criminal gangs. It seems that the political crisis is coming to a boil, as the country continues to tear itself apart along ethnic lines.

According to police officials in Naivasha, a town in the Rift Valley celebrated for its close proximity game parks and fancy lodges, fighting erupted Sunday morning between gangs of Kikuyus and Luos, two of Kenya's biggest ethnic groups. Witnesses said machete-wielding mobs had blocked roads with rocks and flaming tires to prevent police officers from entering certain neighborhoods and then the mobs went house to house, attacking residents who belong to rival ethnic groups.

In one incident, witnesses said at least 7 people and possibly as many as 14 had been burned to death after they were trapped inside their house.

The scene replayed itself in Nakuru, Molo, Timberoa and villages and towns throughout the Rift Valley, which has become the epicenter of violence in Kenya because it is home to supporters of both the president, Mwai Kibaki, and the main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, and the site of long-simmering land disputes between members of rival ethnic groups.

The disputed election, in which Kibaki was declared the winner by a narrow margin despite widespread evidence of vote rigging, seems to have set off outrage over a number of political, socioeconomic and ethnic issues.

In Nakuru, furious mobs rule the streets, burning homes, brutalizing ethnic rivals and expelling anyone not in their ethnic group, all with complete impunity.

On Saturday, hundreds of men prowled a section of the city with iron bars, poisoned swords, clubs, knives and crude circumcision tools. Boys carried gladiator-style shields and women strutted around with sharpened sticks.

The police were nowhere to be found. Even the locals were shocked.

"I've never seen anything like this," said David Macharia, a bus driver.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Nakuru, the biggest town in the Rift Valley, is the scene of a mass migration now moving in two directions.

Luos are headed west, Kikuyus are headed east, and packed buses with mattresses strapped on top pass each other in the road with the bewildered children of the two ethnic groups staring out the windows at each other.

In the past 10 days, dozens of people have been killed in Molo, Narok, Kipkelion, Kuresoi and Nakuru.

The potential for violence existed in the Rift Valley even before the election. There were historic grievances over land and deeply seated ethnic tensions, with many ethnic groups resenting the Kikuyus, Kibaki's group, because they have been the most prosperous for years.

The disputed vote essentially served as the spark, and opposition supporters throughout Kenya vented their rage over many issues toward Kikuyus and other ethnic groups thought to have supported Kibaki.

In the Rift Valley, local elders organized young men to raid Kikuyu areas and kill people in a bid to drive the Kikuyus off their land. It worked, for the most part, and over the past month, tens of thousands of Kikuyus have fled. More than 650 people, many of them Kikuyus, have been killed. Many of the attackers are widely believed to be members of the Luo and Kalenjin ethnic groups.

What is happening now in towns like Nakuru seems to be payback. On Thursday night, witnesses and participants said that bands of Kikuyu men stormed into the streets with machetes and homemade weapons and began attacking Luos and Kalenjins.

Paul Karanja, a Kikuyu shopkeeper in Nakuru, explained it this way: "We had been so patient. For weeks we had watched all the buses and trucks taking people out of the Rift Valley, and we had seen so many of our people lose everything they owned. Enough was enough."

In a Nakuru neighborhood called Free Area, hundreds of Kikuyu men burned down homes and businesses belonging to Luos, Odinga's ethnic group. The Luos who refused to leave were beaten, and sometimes worse.